All purpose news and politics thread part VII: News & Politics Total Landscaping

[CaptainEurope]

OMG:

New: Trump subpoenaed the wrong guy, Manhattan DA says. Trump seeks records from an ex-DA investigator but got the wrong Jeremy Rosenberg.

"I don't have any files for you," J.R. said and told Trump's atty, before adding, "I'm keeping the fifteen dollars" in witness travel fees.

GKwJ-SmWIAAtqW2.jpg

[WestPhillyPunisher]

This has even Kari Lake panicking and fighting for looser abortion rights.

And with good reason. The Arizona ruling is straight up abominable, Republicans like Lake are shaking in their shoes because they know it's going to galvanize the abortion rights movement like nobody's business. Hell, it's already being talked about here in Philly, and that chatter is only going to grow louder.

[aja_christopher]

And with good reason. The Arizona ruling is straight up abominable, Republicans like Lake are shaking in their shoes because they know it's going to galvanize the abortion rights movement like nobody's business. Hell, it's already being talked about here in Philly, and that chatter is only going to grow louder.

[Kevinroc]

This has even Kari Lake panicking and fighting for looser abortion rights.

I don't believe she actually wants looser abortion rights. I just think she recognizes how much of a losing issue this is with voters.

[Username taken]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...speaker-ethics

The far-right Florida Republican Matt Gaetz forced Kevin McCarthy out as House speaker last year “because he slept with a 17-year-old” and wanted a congressional ethics investigation to end, McCarthy charged on Tuesday.

I’ll give you the truth why I’m not speaker,” McCarthy said, at an event at Georgetown University in Washington.

“Because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old, an ethics complaint that started before I ever became speaker. And that’s illegal and I’m not gonna get in the middle of it. “Now, did he do it or not? I don’t know. But ethics was looking at it. There’s other people in jail because of it. And he wanted me to influence it.”

The House ethics investigation of allegations against Gaetz opened in 2021, when Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, was speaker.

Kevin McCarthy sounds like an idiot. Saying all this after he's been ousted is completely ridiculous.

[Tami]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...speaker-ethics



Kevin McCarthy sounds like an idiot. Saying all this after he's been ousted is completely ridiculous.

Not really. When was he supposed to say it? Did he know he would be ousted? If he knew ahead of time for certain, maybe he might have said something, but before then there was no point to doing it. It would have changed nothing, he wasn't getting involved in the ethics probe, and it would not have affected Gaetz in any way, nor would it have saved his speakership.

[Kevinroc]

I don't believe she actually wants looser abortion rights. I just think she recognizes how much of a losing issue this is with voters.

Oh, I was right.

https://twitter.com/BidenHQ/status/1777804223939334228

Top Trump supporter Kari Lake: I'm incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that will prohibit abortion in Arizona. And I think we're going to be paving the way and setting course for other states to follow

[Kevinroc]

https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1777839991193735571

NEW: RFK Jr. campaign official attended Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally and wanted ‘favorite President’ Trump to serve three terms

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/polit...anuary-6-trump

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I don't believe she actually wants looser abortion rights. I just think she recognizes how much of a losing issue this is with voters.

DING DING DING! You are correct, sir!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...speaker-ethics



Kevin McCarthy sounds like an idiot. Saying all this after he's been ousted is completely ridiculous.

I thought Craven Kevin got the boot because he reached across the aisle like a grownup to help Democrats pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running, something Rapey McForehead, Madam Howler Monkey and other hardcore Trumpers DIDN'T want.

[Jack Dracula]

And with good reason. The Arizona ruling is straight up abominable, Republicans like Lake are shaking in their shoes because they know it's going to galvanize the abortion rights movement like nobody's business. Hell, it's already being talked about here in Philly, and that chatter is only going to grow louder.

With the overturning of Roe v Wade the Republican Party is kind of like the dog that actually caught the car it was chasing.
They’d been pandering to religious fundamentalists for decades and finally gave them what they wanted. Now they’re stuck supporting a position that’s very unpopular with some of their own base and helps galvanize and motivate their opposition.
If it weren’t making the lives of women across the country incredibly worse it’d be almost comical.
There’s definitely a lesson in that for them if they were smart enough to understand it.

[zinderel]

This should come as no shock to anyone, but I’m sure I’ll be called an anti-Christian bigot for posting this. I’m used to it…

Arizona State Senator Leads Prayer In Tongues On Floor Before Abortion Ruling

”Looks like our prayer team stirred up some god-haters ... Not to worry though...prayer over our state at the State Senate is way more powerful,” [Kern] wrote on X, the former Twitter.

Oh, look…where there’s a terribly oppressive, anti-American, bigoted law being pushed? There are extremist fundamentalist ‘christian’ nut bags babbling in literal nonsense in the halls of government as he and his ilk force their shitty beliefs on the rest of their state in accordance to the Seven Mountains/Dominionist theology he clearly adheres to. And then BRAGGING about it without fear, because he knows that he can say whatever awfulness he wants, declare them his ‘religious freedom protected beliefs’, and no one with power or authority will dare speak out against his awfulness without risking being called an anti-Christian bigot. All despite nothing about the man resembling Christ or the tenets of Christianity the majority of Christians would identify with.

I want to be VERY clear that while I think all religion is a nonsense scam to enrich the powerful at the expense of the weak while ostensibly providing ‘comfort’ from the existential reality that we are meaningless specks of meat on a meaningless speck of a planet in a meaningless speck of a galaxy in an infinite, uncaring cosmos, I understand why it was created. Not because there is any evidence of ‘God’, but because in the face of existential dread, some people need to believe there’s a plan or a purpose or some all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent Sky Daddy looking out for them. Sadly, that belief almost ALWAYS morphs over time from a source of comfort to the masses into a source of control and power for the wealthy.

If you want to follow Christ’s teachings and call yourself a Christian to help you cope with the uncertainty and chaos of reality? I have no actual problem with that, and if ‘christians’ weren’t DAILY infringing on my rights? I’d be content not calling them out. I’d be thrilled to just let people be people and live their lives following whatever myths and legends make them content. I mean, Christ taught some pretty great stuff: Sermon on the Mount, the parables that directed his followers towards sacrifice for others and social Justice for all (even sinners), the push for communal support for the weakest and most desperate, the declaration that you cannot serve your greed AND god. No ‘anti-Christian bigot’ will begrudge you living your life that way. Not one person who speaks out about ‘christian’ excess would be angry at Christians who behaved like Christ.

I believe in letting people label themselves, so these people - Kern, Trump, Gaetz, Gohmert, Boebert, Greene, Hawley, Rubio, Cruz, Graham, etc - want to call themselves ‘Christian’ despite not acting like ‘Little Christs’? Fine. Then when I point out their awfulness and the horrors that dominionism and ‘christian’ nationalism are - and have been, for well over 50 years, now - responsible for, I will call them what they claim to be: ‘christians’. But I’m making a concerted effort to differentiate them from those Christians who I keep getting TOLD exist (who actually follow Christ’s teachings instead of the pseudo-Old Testament awfulness of White Power Jesus the GOP embraces).

Thus, MTG - whose only goals in life seem to be to divide the community, harrass victims of violence, demonize those she deems ‘unhumans’, and enrich herself - is an example of a ‘christian’, while my gramma - who baked cookies every week for the kids in Awana, and who worked with the women’s auxiliary to deliver meals to the homeless, and who prayed quietly every night for Christ to shine his love on those most in need, lived within her means and donate the rest to various charities she believed in - was a Christian.

It shouldn’t be hard to hold people to a very clear, very basic standard of “Is this person a Christian or not?” We’re all capable of reading the magic books, now. They aren’t the sole province of holy men and sages, anymore (despite the best efforts of many religious leaders to keep their followers stupid and uniformed). We can SEE for ourselves what Christ expected of his followers, and hold them to that standard. And we should strip any church that doesn’t meet that clear standard of its federal protections and benefits. Religious freedom shouldn’t protect the promotion of treason, hatred, or violence. These are inimitable to the health of the nation! If we can bar religions from performing human and animal sacrifice as deleterious to the public good, we should be able to bar those other things, too.

If all of that makes me an ‘anti-Christian bigot’, so be it. I just think it vitally important to recognize and point out when mainstream ‘christianity’ isn’t the sweet, loving, giving, socially just faith it’s propaganda - and our media - makes it out to be. It hasn’t been for decades. Frankly, if Christians want to stop being lumped in with the abject nightmare human beings in gaudy crosses and expensive bibles they never read, then we need to see more of them speak up loudly for social Justice (even for ‘sinners’), flip over the tables of the unworthy that dare set up shop in the temples, scourge a few money lenders profiting off of the desperate, call out wealthy hypocrites and misogynists and bigots hiding behind their bibles, and be willing to sacrifice everything for what’s right.

Instead, all I see from Christians (other than, of all people, the Quakers) is SILENCE from the ‘Real Christian’ leadership while the loud, hateful, Mammon-worshipping dregs claim that title and drag it through the mud in front of everyone…

[Gray Lensman]

DING DING DING! You are correct, sir!



I thought Craven Kevin got the boot because he reached across the aisle like a grownup to help Democrats pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running, something Rapey McForehead, Madam Howler Monkey and other hardcore Trumpers DIDN'T want.

Add in the fact that he also tried to screw over Democrats right before the vote to oust him, so they weren't going to stick their necks out for him in the slightest. Kevin made his bed, and still seems pissed that he was forced to sleep in it.

[CaptainEurope]

Oh yeah:
Trump Media stock is currently down 10% for the day and Trump fell of the Forbes' list of 500 richest people.

[CaptainEurope]

New Reuters poll dropped:

Some 41% of registered voters in the five-day poll, which closed on Monday, said they would vote for Biden, a Democrat, if the election were held today, compared with 37% who picked former President Trump. That 4 point lead was up from a 1 point lead Biden held in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in March.

[Catlady in training]

US general warns time running out for Ukraine without US aid

"If one side can shoot and the other side can't shoot back, the side that can't shoot back loses. So the stakes are very high,"